The silver thread
by snowy-rose
Summary: While Ginko is traveling, he comes across a village who's childern are dieing for unknown reasons. Now he only has a week to save the remaining nine or forever carry the guilt upon his back.
1. a week to live

**I love Mushi-shi and i couldn't help but write a fic about it! So i hope you all like it **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mushi-shi! **

**(in case you've never seen Mushi-shi or have NO clue what i'm writing about...or both...)**

**_Mushi- the creatures between life and death_**

**_Ginko- the main character, he is a mushi-shi who travels all over the place due to the fact that mushi tend to gather where he stays for too long, he constantly smokes cigarettes to keep the mushi from gathering._**

**There's just a bit of common knowledge for you to better understand the story! Soooooo...**

**Enjoy :)**

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The leaves crunched beneath Ginko's feet as he slowly walked through the forest following a dirt path that led to a nearby town

The leaves crunched beneath Ginko's feet as he slowly walked through the forest following a dirt path that led to a nearby town. He slid his hand in his pocket and pulled out a thin cigarette, lighting it he let out a stream of pale smoke that dissipated into the cool autumn air. "guess I should look at this now" he mumbled to himself as he unfolded a frail piece of paper that he had been given by a local from the village.

_Mushi-shi-san_

_My village needs your help, our children are dieing off faster than flies, I fear for my son's life…my wife and I can't bear to loose another child to this disease. I beg of you Mushi-shi-san, …please help us…_

_-Kero Okaku_

"I can't think of what kind of mushi would cause such an effect at the moment" Ginko sat down on a large flat rock and messaged his temples with his fingers. "No pressure huh?" he said trying to reassure himself. He looked up and saw a group of butterfly looking mushi fluttering about in the wind. The soft pale light that reflected off their bodies was somewhat comforting to the mushi master. The forest was quieting down for the night, birds were settling into their nests, crickets were beginning to chirp, and groups of fireflies could be seen in the distance their lights flickering on and off. Small clusters of dull mushrooms sat at the base of a towering oak.

"hmm, what is this?" he remarked, raising an eyebrow, he slid the box off his back and opened a small drawer. "This should do it" he said as he screwed off the cap of a jar and scooped the specimen up.

"Gotcha" a tiny smile escaped from his lips as he looked at his new treasure, "now now…what do we have here?" Ginko sat down in the dirt and held the jar up to the sunlight; the mushi inside the jar was a soft translucent white and shaped like a cross between a caterpillar and a spider. It slowly floated around the jar, looking for a way to escape its prison.

"Sorry there little mushi, but you're now part of my research…how unfortunate for you." He slowly stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants, blowing another stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth, he started down the path again.

The village was small, only about a total of 20 houses were scattered across the clearing in the forest. Ginko stepped into the clearing "it's quiet" he thought as he bent down and rubbed the dirt between his fingers. "Soil's not very good either." He stood up and walked up to a young woman dressed in a traditional housewife kimono

"excuse me" he began "do you know where I can find Kero Okaku?"

The woman raised her head "Kero-san? ... he's the second to last house on the very end" she hesitated for a moment "although if you're visiting, now might not be the best time…"

"Huh?"

"One of Kero-san's sons passed yesterday."

Ginko sighed in disappointment "I was too late" he muttered feeling a pang of guilt for taking his time getting there.

"Too late for what?" she asked

Ginko gave her a puzzled look

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry or anything." She quickly said waving her hands frantically.

"Oh no it's fine" he replied as he pulled out the note "I met Kero in the town before this one, he gave me this." Ginko handed the woman Kero's note, once she finished reading it her hands were trembling.

"Y-you're a Mushi-shi?" she stuttered giving him a dumbfounded look

"Yeah" he replied "I came here to try and fix your problem"

The woman sank to her knees and began sobbing "thank you…thank you" she whispered between sobs "my daughter, she is sick, just like all the ones before her."

Ginko looked down to the woman and helped her up "I'll have a look at her once I talk to Kero ok?"

"T-thank you" tears were streaming down her cheeks and stained her kimono

He stretched out his hand, "I'm Ginko"

"Kono Asawara" she replied "I'm the house with the red floor mat outside the door. Please hurry Ginko-san."

"Don't worry Kono-san, I'll be there as soon as I can" he began to walk away "oh, and if there are anymore sick children, could you please gather them at your house?" he asked "It makes it a lot easier to compare symptoms"

"Yes, I'll fetch them right away Ginko-san" Kono turned around and ran to a neighboring house.

"Aii" she yelled "Aii-chan please open up, I need you to bring Tunotu to my house right away"

Ginko smiled at the woman's determination and followed the dirt path to the very last house on the end. "This looks like the place" he said peering around the corner to make sure it was the last house. Once he was sure that he had the right residence he knocked on the wood of the door. "Hello?" he said "It's me … Ginko"

The door slid open and a weary middle aged man stood in the door way "thank you for coming Ginko-san, please come in."

The mushi master stepped into the small cottage and slid off his shoes "I'm sorry that I'm too late to save your boy." He said quietly "I heard that he passed yesterday…"

Kero gave him a weak smile "what's done is done" he said looking distraught "I can only hope that you can help my other son and all the other children."

"Yeah" Ginko muttered "you and me both"

"I'll take you to Yuki" the man said as he slid the door shut

Ginko followed Kero down the hall and into a small room, in the middle of the floor laid a small boy under a red blanket. Ginko squatted down next to him and studied his features, Yuki's face was pale and sunken in, his breath came in short raspy bursts that resulted in a fit of coughing, and his arms were thin and emancipated looking. He slowly rolled back the blanket, and lifted up his shirt "one two …three" Ginko counted the number of ribs that jutted out of his stomach. Small pink splotches were scattered helter skelter across his stomach.

Once he was done examining Ginko sat down and slid off his cargo, opening a long drawer on the bottom he pulled out a thick stack of papers and diagrams.

"I'll need some time to study him, but for now I need to look at the other children and find a pattern amongst them." He leafed through the papers till he came to one that caught his eye; putting that paper on the top of the stack he neatly placed the papers in the drawer.

"Kero" he said "I'll be over at Kono-san's house, if anything strange happens let me know."

The man nodded his head "I will"

Ginko gingerly stepped out into the night air and began walking back up the path towards Kono's house. A small lantern hung on the outside of the door, casting pale shadows onto the faces of concerned parents that had crowded outside of Kono's house.

"There he is that's the mushi-shi!" men and women frantically whispered and gossiped as he came closer.

"Ginko-san" Kono said waving "I'm glad you could come, please follow me" she pushed a lock of black hair behind her ear and led the Mushi-shi into a large room crowded with sickly children all sleeping in rows. The room was filled with the sounds of wheezing and coughing.

"one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine" he counted as he pointed to each child "is this all that's left?"

Kono nodded her head "yes, we used to have many children but up until a year ago they started to become sick. At first it was only one or two children who fell sick, but as time progressed, more and more became frail and began to cough, until it gets to the point where they can't even stand without help."

Ginko walked over to a small girl with dark brown hair tied in long pigtails "this one looks like you"

"She's my daughter" Kono replied holding back tears "she's been like this for a month now…"

He lifted up her shirt and saw the same pattern of pink spots on her stomach "hmmm" he said as he stroked his chin, Ginko stood up and walked over to the next child

"That's Tunotu, my sister's son, he's only been sick for a few weeks."

He repeated the process and found the same pattern on Tunotu's stomach as well "I think I've found my common pattern." He said aloud

"I-is that good?" she asked

Ginko looked at her through his one good eye "yes it's very good, now I can start analyzing information and piece it all together. For starters, you said this all began a year ago correct?"

Kono nodded her head "Chasku, the elder's son, came back from playing in the forest one day and complained that he didn't feel well."

"The forest huh…do you know where in the forest?"

"Well my Aki-chan came home one day after playing with her friends and said she didn't feel well. Of course I knew about the disease and when Aki-chan told me that she felt sick…I felt so hopeless…"

"Where do the children play?" he asked

"Well she did mention something about playing in a fort in the forest with her friends one time."

Ginko sat back and closed his eyes trying to piece together what information he had thus far. "Was she playing at the fort the day she became sick?"

Kono shook her head "…I don't know, although…" she paused to think "Yuki was with her that day, maybe Kero-san knows if they went there."

Ginko stood up and blankly stared at the wall "I'm going to go ask Kero-san a few questions, in the mean time, could you please find out if any of the parents know if their children played in that area?"

"You think their fort could be what's causing this?" she asked quizzically

"Well it's the only lead I have so far, if it proves to be wrong then I'll have to do a bit more searching, that's all."

"Ok then" Kono said "I'll make a list of who all has played there."

"Good, I'll see you in the morning then."

"Yeah"

Ginko walked out of the house and into the crowd of people

"How's my son?"

"Is my baby ok?"

"What's causing all of this?"

"Are they gunna be ok?"

"Please …tell us!"

The parents threw one question after another at the exhausted Mushi-shi

"Quiet" he said sternly "I don't have any answers yet, all I can ask is that you cooperate with me and with Kono-san until I can help you."

The crowd quieted down and everyone whispered their thanks as they returned to their houses for the night.

"Oi" Ginko thought as he rubbed his temples "that was hell"

The lanterns in front of the houses went out one by one until the landscape was pitch black and silent. Crickets chirped and the occasional owl hooted as Ginko made his way back to Kero's house so he could get a good night's rest and mull over what he had learned so far. "The way I see it" he thought "the lucky ones have at least a week left…"

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**Yeah...i'm not so great at making suspensfull cliffhangers ... or spelling :)**

**So now that you're finished reading...why don't you write a quick review and tell me how i'm doing? I'll try to update soon, i have three other fics going right now, so the next chapter will prolly be up sometime before saturday!**

**Thanks for reading :)**


	2. Six days left

**Ok here's the next chap. ... even though no one has reviewed yet :( **

**Enjoy :)**

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**Day 1/7 (six days left)**

The soft light of the lantern casted shadows on the walls as the mushi-shi sat in front of it. Papers sat spread in a circle around him along with the contents of his cargo, every mushi that he had not known much about, had been temporarily placed into a jar for further studying. Ginko sat hunched over in the middle of the circle "the more spots…the closer to death" he reasoned "unfortunately…I'm too late to help a few of them…I can't figure this out in that amount of time" he thought to himself. "I need to have another look at Yuki"

He stood up and carefully walked out of his room as not to disturb Kero and his wife. He tiptoed down the hall and slid open the door that led to Yuki's room, carefully shutting it behind him, Ginko walked over to the sleeping boy.

"Yuki" he whispered as he tapped the boy on the shoulder

Ginko stared at the small boy until he slowly opened one eye "yes?" he whispered back in a weak raspy voice.

"I need to ask you some questions ok?"

Yuki nodded his head and coughed "ok"

"You played at the fort in the woods correct?"

He once again nodded his head

"Ok, did you see anything weird there…anything weird at all?" the mushi-shi sat cross-legged next to the boy and watched him struggle to talk.

"Mushrooms" he replied which resulted in a fit of coughing "they weren't there before"

Ginko tapped his chin as he thought "good, Yuki get some rest, I'll let you know what I find."

He nodded his head and slowly closed his eye "thank y-you" he whispered as a small tear slid down his cheek.

Ginko stood up and walked out of the room, "I don't think this can wait…" he thought "I need to check this out now, he's getting worse every hour."

He grabbed his coat off the rack and reached for a lantern, lighting it he stepped outside and began walking towards the forest.

"Fort…fort" he thought to himself as he absentmindedly walked through the undergrowth "and now mushrooms?" Ginko scratched his head "they could be inflicted by more than one mushi…or maybe somehow two combined into one…no that's impossible." He came to a stop in front of a large towering rock with sticks propped against the sides. A few discarded toys lay in the leaves and footprints made impressions in the dirt. "Well this looks like a fort, now to find those mushrooms Yuki was talking about." Ginko stooped next to a thick tree and examined the base "…the soil seems richer here" he stood up and circled the rock, a cluster of white mushrooms sat intertwined with a tree branch. They had a bell cap and thin stalk peppered with splotches of black spots, each was about five inches in length.

"There you are" he said as he walked up to them, Ginko lightly tapped the mushroom cap, it didn't move, "defiantly a mushi presence here somewhere." He pulled a small wooden jar out of his pocket and placed one of the mushrooms in it. Holding the lantern closer to the fungus he noticed a small flicker of light. "Hmm" he thought "I'll need to come back in the morning, it's too dark to see anything else…how troublesome"

Ginko made a mental note of the location of the fort and began his walk back to town to get some sleep.

An eerie silence had settled over the town as he made his way out of the undergrowth. He quietly took off his shoes and slid open the front door, stepping inside; he cringed as the floorboards creaked beneath his weight. Ginko tiptoed back to his room and slid the door shut, sinking wearily to the floor he crawled to his mat and pulled the blanket over his shoulders. "I'll be able to think better if I get some sleep" he reached over and blew out the light in the lantern, laying his head on the pillow he succumbed to the sleep that he so desperately needed.

A slight breeze blew in from the window and tousled Ginko's white hair, "uungh" he groaned as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his green eyes. He sat there for a moment staring at the wall until he told himself that he needed to go do his job. Standing up he walked over to his bag and rearranged all of his supplies, slipping on his coat, he slid the door open and joined Kero for breakfast.

"Good morning Ginko-san" he said as the mushi-shi walked into the kitchen

"Eh oh 'morning" he replied rather absentmindedly

Kero gestured for him to sit down "my wife went to go and help Kono-san take care of the children so she won't be joining us for breakfast."

"Ah I'll be heading that way after breakfast" Ginko said "You want me to tell her anything for you?"

"Nah thanks though" Kero replied "I heard you leave last night" he began

"Damn" Ginko laughed "and I thought I did a pretty good job of being sneaky."

Kero smiled "The nights here are dead silent, the slightest noise wakes me up"

"Light sleeper?" He asked as the man set a tray of rice and other various foods in front of him.

"Yeah, always have been, but the question is what were you doing?"

Ginko slid the box off his back and pulled out the wooden mushroom jar "I went to do some research."

Kero raised an eyebrow "at that late?"

"Somethin was bothering me, so went to go and check it out."

Kero was smart and knew when not to pry so he left the mushi-shi alone as they ate in comforting morning silence.

"Thanks for the food Kero-san" Ginko said as he stood up and slung his box over his shoulder "I'm headed to Kono-san's place… see yah"

"Bye Ginko-san!" he replied waving a hand in the air "please work hard!"

The mushi-shi nodded his head in agreement "will do."

He slid a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out one of his trademark cigarettes

"Good morning Mushi-shi-san!" A woman yelled from her porch, waving her hand energetically "please do your best today!"

Ginko waved back and gave her a nod as he continued to Kono's house; one after another people went out of their way to thank the mushi-shi.

He followed the dirt path until he came to where he needed to be, walking up the steps he politely knocked on the door. "Kono-san, its Ginko"

He could hear the coughs and cries of the small children through the door some crying out for their mothers others crying because they were scared. "Kono-san?" Ginko waited for a reply "Kono-san?" …no answer "ok then I'm coming in" he slid open the door and stepped inside "Kono-san?" Ginko was getting worried, "why isn't she answering me?"

He walked down the hall after taking off his shoes, once he came to the room where the children were resting he saw Kono slumped against the back wall with a small child resting in her lap.

Ginko smiled "she must have stayed up all night" he thought as he tenderly picked up the toddler and inspected her. His smile soon faded away at the sight of the numerous pink splotches spread across her stomach, "not good" he thought "yesterday she only had a total of 12 spots" he said aloud as he recalled his previous visit "now today she has …20…they're multiplying fast" he sighed "I don't know if I can help her…"

A weak voice interrupted his thought process "P-please you have to help her…she's my little sister."

Ginko looked down at the little boy lying next to him; he knelt down to his level "she's your sister?"

The boy slowly nodded his head "her name's Haru"

"Haru" he repeated "what's yours?"

He coughed and replied "Koji"

"Koji huh?" Ginko said making a mental note "Well Koji I need to look at your stomach."

Koji slowly lifted up his shirt and allowed Ginko to look, there were pink spots, but not as many as his little sister.

"How long has she been sick?" He asked

Koji thought for a moment "about two months…I think" his reply sent him into a wheezing coughing fit that would put any tuberculosis patient to shame.

"Thanks Koji" Ginko said with remorse as he stood up "I'll try to fix you and your sister."

He was about to exit through the sliding panel door but something held him back "…Koji" he asked slowly "did you and your sister ever play in the fort in the woods?" he asked on impulse.

The little boy nodded his head "yeah we played there all the time"

Ginko gave him a smile and nodded his head "thought so" he scribbled Kono a note saying that he had stopped by and that he was going to check out the fort again to see if he had overlooked anything important.

"Ok then, take care of everybody Koji, I'll be back later."

Ginko stealthy slid out the back door and walked across the road and over to the woods, "Maybe I can find something interesting on my way there" he thought as he ducked under a thick limb protruding from a towering leafy maple tree. As he was in the process of ducking, something caught his eye; it was slithering across the grass like a snake, except it wasn't a snake. It was a mushi, and a rather odd one too shaped like a thread and it shimmered with a brilliant sliver light that made even the most polished chrome seem like garbage.

"Now what do we have here" the mushi-shi whispered to himself as he stooped down to get a better view. "Never seen this one before…" With a swift flick of the wrist Ginko scooped up the mushi and placed it into a jar, "I'll have to consult the books on this one." He stuck another one of his smoldering cigarettes between his lips and rolled it between his teeth. Feeling satisfied with the mushi in his bag he continued on his way, hopping that there was a way to solve this epidemic.

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**Ok, so someone please review and tell me how i'm doing so far**

**Thanks for reading :)**


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